From the Little Yellow Kitchen

February 19th, 2013

Honey Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese Crostini and Gorgonzola & Honey Endive Spears {Plus a live TV cooking segment!}

by Lauren

We have a very special treat for you. TWO recipes in one post and a live TV cooking segment featuring the LYK!

This was our third time on San Diego Living and yet again, we had such a great time doing the show with our buddy Marc Bailey (scroll down to see the video!).

We made a couple of appetizers featuring honey on the show today.

The first was a Honey Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese Crostini with arugula.

The sweet beets with the creamy goat cheese and spicy arugula is such an awesome combination. This recipe is so, so simple, you’ve got to try it!

The second recipe was Gorgonzola Endive Spears with candied almonds & honey.

The bitter endive really offset the sweetness of the candied nuts and honey and it makes for such amazing flavor.

The camera crew couldn’t keep their hands off of these tasty little guys!

Now…drumroll please. See us make them live!

From the Little Yellow Kitchen

Honey Roasted Beets & Goat Cheese Crostini

Ingredients

1 large beet (or two small), sliced 1/4-inch thick rounds and cut in half

1/2 baguette, sliced 1/2-inch thick

4 oz. goat cheese

1/2 cup arugula

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Honey

Olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Drizzle baguette slices with olive oil and place in oven for about 10-15 minutes, until crisp and golden brown.

Place sliced beets on a baking sheet lined with foil and drizzle with olive oil and 1 tablespoon of honey. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until they can be easily pierced with a fork.

Spread goat cheese onto cooled crostini and top with 3-4 arugula leaves. Lay roasted beets on top and drizzle with a little bit of honey.

Gorgonzola Endive Spears {with candied almonds & honey}

Ingredients

3 heads Belgium endive, variety of green and red

6 oz. cream cheese, softened

3 oz. Gorgonzola, crumbled

2 Tbsp chives, chopped

Dash of black pepper

Candied almonds, finely chopped (or walnuts/pecans)
Honey, for drizzling

Directions

In a bowl, mix the softened cream cheese, crumbled Gorgonzola, chives and pepper, using a fork until combined.

To separate the leaves from the endive, cut 1/2-inch from the stem-end of the endive and remove the outer leaves, until you cannot pull off any more. Repeat for each endive, discarding the smallest leaves.

Place a spoonful of gorgonzola filling into the bottom half of each endive spear. Place on serving platter, sprinkle with candied almond pieces, drizzle generously with honey and garnish with two 1-inch pieces of chives, crossed. Serve immediately, or cover and place in fridge for a couple of hours before serving.

From the Little Yellow Kitchen,

Lauren & Chrissy

Posted in Appetizer, Recipes | 4 Comments »

Tags: appetizers, beets, Crostini, endive, Food, goat cheese, honey, recipe, san diego living, tv

July 10th, 2012

The Taste of Little Italy 2012

by Lauren

The glorious San Diego Taste of Little Italy took place a few weeks ago and we were so excited to go again! As three-time Taste of Little Italy champions, we take our job ~~rolling~~ walking around and eating food, quite seriously.

Here’s the highlight reel of our ~~competitive eating~~ tasting experience:

You will see here that after we grabbed our passes, we sat down at one of our favorite happy hour spots in Little Italy, Zia’s Bistro. Lucky for us they were serving up some delectable gnocchi for the Taste, otherwise we would have been extremely tempted to go for their ah-mazing white goat cheese pizza.

Don’t worry, we practiced “self control” for the time being as we knew that we could spare no room for distraction.

Ok, pound that wine. Let’s move along.

Zia’s Bistro: Creamy cheese gnocchi.

Puerto La Boca: Signature skirt steak, Argentinian chorizo sausage and a sample of Malbec Wine.

Bencotto: Pasta al Forno con Salsiccia: Oven baked artisanal macaroni in pink sauce with mozzarella and mild sausage.

Napizza: Veggie Pizza.

Pizza with red potato, crispy bacon, sprinkled with fresh mozzarella and classic zucchini velvet sauce.

Isola Pizza Bar: Bruschetta and tasty margarita pizza.

Craft & Commerce: Soft serve ice cream sundae with salted chili de arbol caramel, Angostura bitters and toasted pretzel streusel.

Holy ice cream cone. We’ll be honest, we are HUGE fans of Craft & Commerce and we were a little let down when we saw that they were sampling “soft serve”…until we realized that they would never serve up anything plain and boring. We never should have doubted their craftiness.

Petrini’s: Tortellini with a pink cream sauce.

Kelvin at the W Hotel: Compressed watermelon with blue cheese, cilantro and Saba drizzle.

Anthology: Local Halibut Crudo on Brioche Toast with Fresh Fava Bean Pesto.

Frabrison’s: Sweet crepes, these ones are stuffed with Nutella .

PrepKitchen: We were glad to see this new jewel of a restaurant in the Italian ‘hood. They had some amazing bacon wrapped dates stuffed with blue cheese, however, we gobbled it up before we could photograph it. Oops. You would understand if you were there.

Davanti Enoteca: roasted corn salad with walnuts, aged goat cheese, arugula and wild mushrooms, paired with and a lovely Aperol Spritz.

Caffe Italia: Espresso and cappuccino for days. Also, if you ~~bat your eyes~~ ask nicely, they do foam art! You’ll see this artist’s signature leaf design in the background, then a more intricate Indian design, in the front!

…and a little love in this one .

These artsy capps conclude our journey, this year. We’ve learned that these are most enjoyed last. In short, we ate all that…and more. Don’t ask how.

Pure domination.

Truthfully, we had some jolly good company tagging along for the stroll throughout Little Italy, helping us eat along the way. Thanks, Lindsey, Pearl and Chris! Our bellies would have been so full if it weren’t for those three.